Asserting that the statement issued by Breckenridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to the effect that 580,000 refugees were admitted to this country over a period of ten years, “is welcome in and for itself,” Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared last night that “ever within our strict immigration quotas, many additional tens of thousands could have been saved by our government.” He charged that “a new illiberal policy in granting visas has prevented many from coming in who later met their death in concentration camps and execution chambers.”
Speaking at a testimonial rally tendered him by New York Zionists at the Biltmore Hotel, Dr. Goldstein declared that “to lump the Jewish plight with the plight of other conquered peoples is to evade realities. The cruel reality is that no other people has been marked for complete extermination. To offer the Jews of Europe,” the speaker continued, “the hope that Hitler’s inevitable doom will bring them relief from their troubles is false solace. Most of the Jews in Hitler lands who are alive today may not be alive to see the day of Hitler’s doom. The victory of the United Nations may come too late to do any good,” the speaker said.
More than 1,000 delegates representing over 150 Zionist units and groups in Greater New York attended the testimonial rally. The conference adopted a resolution calling upon the United Nations to proclaim “the reconstitution of Palestine as the Jewish Commonwealth as part of the peace aims of the United Nations, so that the Jewish people may be enabled to take its place in the progressive order of mankind which will ensue from this struggle.” The resolution also addressed an appeal to the President of the United States that all appropriate action be taken to insure the withdrawal in its entirety of the Palestine White Paper of 1939, with its restrictions on immigration and land settlement.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
